Long road ahead

Rahul Gandhi’s belated coronation is only the beginning of Congress’s uphill struggle

The only surprise in Rahul Gandhi’s appointment as Congress vice-president was that it took so long to happen. In a party that runs on dynastic succession, Rahul had his pick of posts and positions. Number one, number two, number three; does it really matter for a scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family and acknowledged heir to the Congress throne?

Rahul’s new post, therefore, is inconsequential. It’s his role rather than his position that will determine whether he is the game changer the Congress so desperately seeks in the run-up to a challenging general election. The task before Rahul is not just to shed his reticence and provide leadership upfront, but to craft a new idiom for his party that will give shape and substance to his promise of change. If he indeed represents a generatio-nal shift in terms of age group, he will have to chart a brave new course that is uniquely his own.

Every change of guard in the Congress has brought with it new direction and a new slogan. In 1971, Indira Gandhi took a decisive Left turn and swept the country with “garibi hatao”. In 1984, her son Rajiv came as a breath of fresh air with his youthful dreams of taking India into the 21 {+s} {+t} century. He changed direction subtly, paving the way for the huge economic changes that were to follow. Twenty years later, Sonia Gandhi’s “aam admi” proved to be a winner as she too shifted gears to soften the harsh glare of the BJP’s “shining India” with a slew of government-funded welfare measures.

The line is wearing thin now. The aam admi seems to have disappeared from the Congress party’s calculus in a deluge of corruption scandals, spiralling food prices and policy paralysis. Recent unpopular decisions may have revived market sentiment but they haven’t helped the party’s image which is at rock bottom today. And to top it all, a new constituency has reared its head and is demanding to be heard: the young urban middle class.

There was a glimmer of recognition at the just concluded Congress conclave in Jaipur that the recent street protests against corruption and rape have had a profound impact and awakened a new consciousness in a class that was thought to be apolitical and self-indulgent. Something is happening in urban India and it is demanding to be addressed.

Twenty years of Mandalisation and liberalisation have produced a new class of voters who want to change the rules of political engagement. They are aspirational, upwardly mobile and impatient. They want the political class to listen and the government to start delivering here and now. The caste calculus does not matter. They are all part of a giant middle class spawned by the great equaliser: the market.

Sonia won over the aam admi with doles from the state. But it must be evident to Rahul that his mother’s politics cannot work for him, not in the new emerging India. The demographics speak for themselves. Today, almost 30% of India lives in cities and towns and the number is growing rapidly. Nearly 200 of the 542 Lok Sabha seats are either fully urban or semi-urbanised. And the under-35 age group is around 50% of the population.

This is the constituency that Rahul has to capture — and if the mood of the two big protests that took urban India by storm is any indication, he will have to learn a completely new language to get through. The politics of patronage perfected by the Congress over decades of single-party rule will not work with this class. It is not interested in crumbs from the high table. It wants much more.

Unfortunately, Rahul himself is a product of feudal politics. He is a dynast and consequently represents the very tendencies this new class abhors. He will have to strike a completely different, almost radical note to connect with it. He lost out on two great opportunities to make a mark and establish his USP. One, of course, was the Anna Hazare anti-corruption movement; the other was the anti-rape protests that shook Delhi. His intervention in the first (to give constitutional status to the proposed Lokpal) sank without a trace and he was missing in action in the second.

The coronation in Jaipur would seem to be a belated effort to make up for missed opportunities and to give Rahul a fresh lease of political life. Ironically, even here, the Cong-ress seems to have stumbled by choosing the largely ceremonial post of vice-president for him. In fact, Rahul joins a rather dubious legion because the only other vice-presidents the Congress has had were Arjun Singh and Jitendra Prasada, who were bumped up because they had become inconvenient.

The road ahead is a tough one. Innovative ideas are only one part of the solution. The other is to breathe new life into an ancient regime to transform it into an instrument of change. Of all the Nehru-Gandhis to rule the Congress, Rahul probably has to work the hardest to earn his political spurs.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Political commentator Arati R Jerath is a typical hack, a critical, scornful know-it-all. She has something to say about everything but will stick to blogging on politics, foreign policy and current affairs. She's been writing on these subjects for nearly 30 years so at least she can claim to have some expertise. Officially, she has no political bias but watch out for her bleeding heart liberal views. She ends up sounding like a jholawala at times.

Political commentator Arati R Jerath is a typical hack, a critical, scornful know-it-all. She has something to say about everything but will stick to bloggi. . .